Turkey Will Build Its Largest Carrier, Able To Transport Voidal Aircraft To Drones

Turkey's TCG Anadolu (L400) ship. (Wikimedia Commons/Adem)

JAKARTA - Turkey is reportedly preparing to build its largest domestic aircraft carrier through a project led by the Directorate of the Naval Command Design Project Office (DPO).

The national aircraft carrier will surpass TCG Anadolu, a multipurpose amphibious landing helicopter (LHD) assault ship that officially served in the Turkish Navy last year.

Located at the Istanbul Shipyard Command of the Ministry of National Defense (MSB), the DPO shared information about the ongoing project with journalists late last month.

The design of a larger national aircraft carrier than TCG Anadolu is said to be underway at the DPO, with the aim of lifting the domestic ratio to the new national aircraft carrier.

In the conceptual design stage, domestically manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to be deployed on new aircraft carriers. In line with this goal, collaboration with leading companies in their fields such as Baykar and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is underway.

Founded in 1997 to carry out the MILGEM (National Ship) project, DPOs have played an important role in various naval projects, including the development of ADA TCG class corvettes Heybeliada, TCG B\"ay\"ukada, TCG Burgazada and TCG K\"calnalmenada. These ships began operating in 2011, 2013, 2018 and 2019.

Starting with the MILGEM project, work started on the "Istif Class Fregate Project" design activity, which aims to design frigates with superior operational and maneuver functions compared to internationally recognized ADA class corvettes.

The first ship of the project, the Istanbul TCG frigate, was built at the Istanbul Navy Shipyard and commissioned earlier this year.

The Istanbul frigate (F-515) stands out with local content reaching 80 percent. It has modern and national systems, including the Naval Cannon MKE, Atmaca anti-ship missiles, and the G wayDENIZ near-range air defense system.

"Our main combat elements, including assault ships, patrol boats, corvettes, and frigates, all of whose engines are produced at the manufacturing level without foreign dependencies, can be assembled here, the faults can be corrected and can be re-mounted on ships," explained the Commander of the Istanbul Shipyard Rear Admiral Erdinget Yetkin, citing Daily Sabah from the public broadcaster TRT Haber May 2.

TCG Anadolu, imitating the Juan Carlos I model from Spain, offers 70 percent of domestic content. However, with a team of about 110 people on the DPO, efforts are underway to increase domestic production ratios for new national aircraft carriers.

The ship measuring 231 meters (758 ft) long and 32 meters wide weighs 27,436 tons. It was ordered in 2015 and launched in April 2019, before officially serving in the ceremony on April 10, 2023.

TCG Anadolu is intended to meet various needs and requirements of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), such as maintaining long-term resilience, long-range military combat, or humanitarian aid operations while acting as a command center and mainstay of the Turkish Navy.

Originally intended to support helicopters and short takeoff and vertical landing fighters (STOVL) such as the F-35B variant, the role of TCG Anadolu developed after Turkey was removed from the F-35 program in 2019 due to the acquisition of Russian-made S-400 aircraft. defense system.

This prompted Turkey to reconsider development plans and make additional adjustments to turn the Anadolu TCG into an unmanned aerial vehicle carrier, unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) and unmanned fighter jet, in addition to helicopters.

TCG Anadolu, among other things, is expected to include the implementation of a more sophisticated version of Baykar's TB2 drone Bayraktar TB3, which on Wednesday completed its 30th test flight, its developer announced.